


Another Round

by Trammel



Series: Trust is a Verb [3]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Jessica Jones (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-27
Updated: 2016-03-27
Packaged: 2018-05-29 12:03:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6374017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trammel/pseuds/Trammel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony can't sleep, so he goes out drinking. And finds an unexpected drinking buddy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Another Round

Tony couldn’t sleep. That was nothing new.  But it had gotten much worse since – since the aliens. He still couldn’t even think about it without freaking out.

The serious buzz he had going on was helping with that.

His new BFF had suggested that instead of killing himself working on the suits for 50 hours straight, Tony could sometimes get out of the tower, take a walk. Strangely, Tony listened to him once in a while. Bruce often came with him, and they either walked in silence or talking a million miles an hour.

But tonight, no, tonight Tony needed to be alone. Or at least with like-minded drinkers. He’d walked and walked for a good while, and ended up doing his own pub crawl at increasingly dark and dingy bars.

He opened the door to this latest place, pulling his cap down on his head a bit. He was dressed down and wearing his shades; not exactly a disguise, but he banked on most people not expecting to run into him at a place like this.

This place was perfect. Dark, kinda dirty, full of serious drinkers minding their own business. He walked – stumbled – to a stool next to a dark-haired girl slumped over her own glass.

The bartender grunted at him. “Your worst whiskey.”

The girl spoke up, she had a rough, smokers’ voice. “Give him what I’m having.” She turned to him for a second. “It’ll do the trick.” She was young, but he would never assume that that meant she didn’t have anything to drink about.

“Sure, what she’s having.” She gave him an inscrutable look, and he read intelligence in her dark eyes. He gave her a nod, then she turned back to her own glass.

He managed to drink for a while and just enjoy the feeling of not feeling. Just not feeling. It was a relief. Then Tony looked down and noticed that his glass was empty.

“Fill’er up.” He gestured to the bartender, but somehow overextended and found himself kind of falling off the barstool. But the girl moved lightning fast and grabbed him under his arms, pulling him up, holding all his weight like it was nothing. She was _strong._ Shit.

He hoped she wasn’t some kind of supervillian, he wasn’t in the best shape for fighting.

The girl propped him back up on his stool, and looked him straight in the eye. He saw it, the spark of recognition, then waited for her either to go all star-struck idol worshiper or spew some hate at him. But neither happened. She just looked… tired.

“You have a driver or something, right? A bunch of minions? Somebody to come and take your drunk ass home?”

Tony wrapped a hand around his glass to steady himself, and waited, but that was all she said. So he nodded. “Yeah. Uh, yeah, got people I can call.”

“Good. I don’t take in strays. And I’m sure there’s some law against flying drunk.”

“That’s never stopped me before.” That didn’t get even a small smile, so he shut up and watched the bartender pour him another round. Tony stared at the golden liquid like a lifeline.

For a while he just sipped  his drink and she sipped hers. But he couldn’t understand her, couldn’t understand why she figured out who he was and didn’t care.

He turned back to look at her. “Whyn’t you ask me?”

She looked up and he saw that tiredness again. A bone-deep tiredness in her eyes.

“Ask you what?”

“What everybody asks me. Always asks me. The stars. About the fucking _stars.”_ He spat, a little more harshly than he intended. To shut himself up he took another sip, feeling the wonderful burn down his throat.

Her voice came, low and strained.

“Because I know what it’s like. I know.”

“Huh?” He realized the place was kind of spinning now. She was probably right. If he did something stupid and ended up in the tabloids again, Fury would throw a fit, now that Tony was officially in the boyband. He really should call somebody.

”I know about the guilt. Every time you don’t do something. Or you’re too late. Or too early. Or you do your best but it’s still not enough. Or you just fuck up. So people die. People die when you could have saved them.”

“Yeah,” he croaked, almost speechless at that.

“So you don’t sleep. And you spend the night in places like this.” She met his eyes again and he saw that she did know. She knew it all.

He went back to staring at his glass, because what could he say to that? She was right, the only thing  you could do about that was pour another drink. They sat in the dark silence some more, until she finished her last drink, threw some money on the bar and stood up.

“Call your driver, rich boy. I told you, I don’t take in strays.”

She gave him a nod and then she was gone. He wasn’t sure if he just imagined the touch of her hand on his shoulder, squeezing for a second, then gone.

Tony reached for his phone.


End file.
